Trump fights to fend off Cruz in upstate New York

ROME, N.Y.— Nearly seven thousand people turned out to see Donald Trump inside an old Air Force hangar here in western New York, despite getting less than 24 hours notice that the GOP frontrunner was coming here.

By the time the GOP frontrunner finally took the stage an hour behind schedule the cavernous room filled to its back wall. Reverberating roars rose up as Trump began to speak, stoking the crowd’s anger by citing statistics detailing the region’s economic decline, blasting the RNC for a “rigged” nomination process and taking aim at his usual foils: Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney and Ted Cruz. Here in the town where Francis Bellamy, author of the Pledge of Allegiance, lived and is buried, Trump stood below a giant American flag and promised to make the country great again.

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“TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!” the crowd screamed.

Amidst a campaign conversation in the run-up to next Tuesday’s primary focused on the notion of Trump’s “New York values,” the supposed liberalism of a long-time Manhattan resident, it is the mogul’s strong appeal upstate to veterans and white working class voters that would seem to explain his commanding lead in his home state.

“These are my people, these are my people!” Trump exclaimed at one point in response to the cheers, whistles and shouts.

But the reality—borne out by polling data and a schedule that includes three events this week in upstate New York—is that this region is where Trump is the weakest in the state.

Weak is a relative term, of course. Trump is sitting at 50 percent support in upstate New York, according to an extensive Liberty Opinion Research survey two weeks ago of nearly 1,800 GOP primary voters across the state. But compare that to his support in New York City (67 percent) or on Long Island and the suburbs (60 percent), and it shows that western New York is actually a place where Trump has room to grow.

It’s also Cruz's best region—and his best chance of picking up delegates—in a state he’s certain to lose outright. He polls at 22 percent upstate while languishing in the teens in New York City and the surrounding areas. John Kasich also polled at 24 percent here.

The regional differences are critical, as New York awards the lion’s share of its delegates based on results at the Congressional district level — and as Trump has little margin-for-error in pursuit of the 1,237 delegates he’d need to avoid a contested convention, he can ill-afford to leave any on the table in his home state.

“He’s definitely going where we need him,” said one operative working on Trump’s New York campaign, which began Sunday in Rochester and continued Monday with a large rally in Albany before the Rome rally was added to the schedule Monday afternoon.

Carl Palladino, the 2014 gubernatorial candidate from Buffalo who was one of Trump’s earliest and most committed organizers, stirred up the crowd as they waited for the candidate to arrive.

“Are we mad?” he asked the crowd, drawing an emphatic response from a sea of red hats. “Are we really mad? Are we going to build a wall? Are we no longer the silent majority?”

But the reaction was nothing compared to the frenzy stirred by Trump, who shed his topcoat upon taking the stage and made an overt pitch to working class voters, citing statistics as he painted a sketch of the fall of Rome.

“Your county has lost 60 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the 1980s,” Trump said, citing the Bureau of Labor Statistics and blaming China for currency manipulation.

“What the hell is going on?” he railed, drawing boos.

“Bullshit,” one man yelled.

“I agree,” Trump replied from the stage.

For a second straight day, Trump played on his supporters’ passions by suggesting that the Republican Party’s nomination process “is absolutely rigged” and “a phony deal,” complaining that he failed to pick up a single delegate last weekend in Colorado, where Ted Cruz secured all 34 of the state’s RNC delegates at assemblies where only a few thousand party activists cast votes.

“The RNC—the Republican National Committee—should be ashamed of [them]selves for allowing this kind of crap to happen,” Trump said.

With talk swirling of party bosses conspiring to deny him the nomination at the July convention in Cleveland (even though, just two hours earlier, Speaker Paul Ryan emphatically denied his interest in being nominated from the floor), Trump reminded the crowd of the GOP establishment’s failures to win the White House with more mainstream candidates.

“Romney choked like a dog,” said Trump, before grabbing his throat to imitate the act of choking. “I can’t breathe,” he joked, before returning to his point.

“That was an election that should have been won, easily,” he continued. “McCain failed. Romney failed. And I said, ‘This time, we’re gonna do it ourselves.”

He repeated his critique of the establishment’s last, best hope to stop him, Ted Cruz, referring to the Texas senator as “Lyin’ Ted” and reveling in the crowd shouting out the well-worn moniker in unison.

Vander Plaats took note, tweeting at Trump: “So sorry @realDonaldTrump, I'm ‘Cruzin’ to the nomination with @tedcruz! No interest in ‘Art of the Deal.’ #Loyal”

Trump also slammed Clinton, asserting that her “whole life is a lie,” but without elaborating on what exactly he was referring to. Moments later, he assured the crowd that “nobody respects women more than Donald Trump.”

Barbara Voelkle, who watched Trump from the front row and got the billionaire to autograph the brim of her red ‘Make America Great Again’ ball cap after the rally had ended, carried a campaign sign in her hand. On the back, in magic marker, she’d written in big letters: ‘Women for Trump.’

“Women really do like Trump,” she said. “It’s because the media doesn’t report the truth that people think we don’t.”

Like Trump, Voelkle sees the GOP frontrunner as the victim—of a dishonest media and corrupt political establishment. “I’m pissed off about how the party has treated him,” she said. “We’ve all suffered up here under Obama and now the cronies in Washington want to protect themselves and their special interest friends—it’s crap.

“That’s why I’m voting for Trump, and why my family—all my siblings and a lot of their kids—are also voting for Trump.”